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Dr. Nayanika Mookherjee


nayanika

Sociology: Lecturer (Leverhulme Research Fellow 2009-2011)

Department: Sociology

Degree: BA (Hons.)(Political Science, Presidency College, Calcutta University, India); MA (Sociology and Anthropology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,India); PhD [Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London].

Associated research centres and groups: Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe), Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research, Dynamics of Memories, Feminist Media Studies Research Group, Human Rights Forum


Current Teaching

Undergraduate course

  • Introduction to Socio-Cultural Anthropology (Full unit course for 20 weeks)
  • Contemporary Feminist Debates
  • Part 1: CGWS

Postgraduate course:

  • Gender, Sex and Bodies: From the Global to the Biological
  • Faculty Postgraduate Research Training Course on Ethics (Introduction to Qualitative methods & Ethics in SocialResearch).
  • Convenor of Faculty Postgraduate course FASS522 (Ethics in Social Research).

Research Interests

I joined Lancaster University as a Lecturer in 2003 following a Post-Doctoral Fellowship [Society for South Asian Studies, (British Academy)], Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex.

CURRENT ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

    • Member of the Executive Committee and Ethics Officer, Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth (ASA)
    • Co-ordinator of the ASA Globalog http://blog.theasa.org/
    • Member of the organising committee of the 2012 ASA conference in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
    • Member of the organising committee of the 2013 Conference of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), to be held in Manchester.

CURRENT RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

Research Interests and Potential Doctoral Proposals

  • Anthropology of politics, state, violence, memory, and human rights
  • Gendered violence during wars
  • Affective apparatus (museums, memorials), senses and the nation-state
  • Political kinship, genetics and transnational adoption
  • Medical anthropology
  • Diasporic communities and South Asia.

I am engaged in the following Research Projects:

1. Public Memories of Gendered/Sexual Violence during wars/conflict situations As a Richard Carley Hunt Fellow awarded by the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (New York), my book emerging from this research (titled The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence and Public Memories and the Bangladesh War of 1971) is forthcoming with Duke University Press.This is based onextensive fieldwork in Bangladesh to examine the public memories of sexual violence of the Bangladesh War of 1971 and theoretically explore the various constructions of the nation.

2. Arts, Affect and the Bangladesh War Crimes Tribunal As part of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2009-2011) this project seeks to explore the configuration of the nation-state and the relation between art and politics through the evocation of senses by various affective apparatus (like museums, memorials etc.) in the context of the setting up of the Bangladesh war crimes tribunal. I was also invited for a one month scholarly residency in the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio as part of this project. Linked to this I co-organised an International Inter-disciplinary Conference 'Melancholic States', 27-29 September 2007 http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/melancholicstates/registration.htm

3.'War-Babies', Genetic Citizenship and Transnational Adoption Funded by the Society for South Asian Studies (British Academy) and Lancaster University, my other research project relates to the contested relationship between genetics, and the nation-state through the prism of 'war babies' (children born as a result of sexual violence during wars) in Western Europe and North America. Through this, ideas of belonging and citizenship are theorised in the context of Transnational Adoption.

4. Ethics and Ethnographic Research Co-awarded, 'ESRC Research Training Programme: Ethics and Ethical Practice in Social Science, 2006-2009' http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/ethicalresearch/

PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS

2011. The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence, Public Memories and the Bangladesh War of 1971.' Foreword by Prof. Veena Das. Durham N. C.: Duke University Press.

Arts of Reconciliation and the Bangladesh War of 1971. Contracted with the Cultural Memory in the Present Series, Stanford University Press. Manuscript under preparation.

SPECIAL ISSUES OF INTERNATIONAL PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS Forthcoming

Forthcoming 2011 Guest Editor, The Self in South Asia. Special Issue of Journal of Historical Sociology.

Forthcoming 2011. Co-Editor with Prof. Christopher Pinney. 'Aesthetics of nations: Anthropological andhistorical perspectives'. Special Issue of Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI).

2011. Introduction: 'Aesthetics of nations: Anthropological andhistorical perspectives'. Special Issue of Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI).

2011. 'Never Again': Aesthetics of 'Genocidal' Cosmopolitanism and the Bangladesh Liberation War Museum.' Special Issue of Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI).

JOURNAL ARTICLES Forthcoming

2011. 'The womb and the absent skin: Sexual violence in the Bangladesh war and its gendered and racialised inscriptions' in Modern Asian Studies, Cambridge University Press.

BOOK SECTIONS Forthcoming

'Ethics of Anthropology.' Commissioned article in Richard Fardon and John Gledhill eds. ASA Handbook of Social Anthropology. Co-authored article with Prof. Michael Lambek. Sage.

2011. 'Mass Rape and the Inscription of Gendered and Racial Domination during the Bangladesh War of 1971' in Raphaelle Branche et Fabrice Virgili (eds.), Les Viols en temps de guerre (Rape in wartime) (Paris: Payot, forthcoming in 2011).

2011'Remembering to Forget': Public Secrecy and Memory of Sexual Violence in Bangladesh' in The Performance of Mass Rape: War, Trauma, and Limit Phenomena. Comparative Feminist Studies series. Editor Chandra T. Mohanty. Palgrave Macmillan.

Published

REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES

Long, N, Bruner, E.M., and Mookherjee, N. 2009. 'Discussion point: when informants lie'. Cambridge Anthropology 29(3): 85-94. 800th anniversary commemorative volume.

2009. Ethical murkiness of research on commemorative practices of past historical injustices: Response to Sue Benson's 'They came from the North: Historical truth and the duties of memory along Ghana's slave route.' Cambridge Anthropology 29(3): 88-94. 800th anniversary commemorative volume.

2009. 'Debates on Ethical Practice: A Perspective from the Association of Social Anthropologists' in Anthropology News (American Anthropological Association) Vol 50, issue 6. Co-authored article with Dr. Ian Harper. September 09: 10-11. http://www.aaanet.org/pdf/upload/50-6-Harper_Mookherjee-In-Focus.pdf

2009. Editor. 'Ethics of Apology: A Set of Commentaries'. Critique of Anthropology: 24.3, September 2009. Contributions by Dr. Nayanika Mookherjee, Prof. Nigel Rapport, Prof. Lisette Josephides, Prof. Gillian Cowlishaw, Prof. Ghassan Hage, Dr. Lindi Todds: 345-366. http://coa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/29/3/345

2009. The Ethics of Apology Open Meeting at the joint international conference of the ASA, the ASAANZ and the AAS, Auckland, 9 December 2008. Anthropology Today. June 2009, Vol 25,3: 29. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgibin/fulltext/122407657/PDFSTART

2008. 'Gendered Embodiments: Mapping the body-politic of the raped woman and the nation in Bangladesh' in Feminist Review, Special Issue on War. Volume 88: 1, April 2008: 36-53. Updated reprint of chapter in Nirmal Puwar & Parvati Raghuram (eds.) (2003), Critical Reflections on Gender and the South Asian Diaspora. Oxford: Berg: 157-177.

2008. 'Culinary boundaries and the making of place in Bangladesh' in C.Osella and F. Osella eds.Special Issue on Vegetarian or Non-vegetarian? Food and borders in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. Vol. 31, no. 1 (April 2008): 56-75.

2007. 'Research' on Bangladesh War. Economic and Political Weekly Vol 42, 50, December 15-21.

2007. 'The "Dead and their Double Duties": Mourning, Melancholia and the Martyred Intellectual Memorials in Bangladesh.' Special Issue The Material and Visual Culture of Cities. Space and Culture. 10.2 (May 2007): 271-291. 2006.

2007. 'Available motherhood: Legal technologies, 'state of exception' and the dekinning of 'war babies' in Bangladesh.' Special Issue, The state and children's fate: reproductionin traumatic times. Childhood: a journal of global child research 14[3]), August 2007: 339-354.

2006. 'Remembering to Forget': Public Secrecy and Memory of Sexual Violence in Bangladesh' in Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI). 12 (2), June 2006: 433-450.

2006. 'Bangladesh war of 1971: A Prescription for Reconciliation?' Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 41 No 36: 3901-3903. Also reprinted in Forum, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2006. http://www.thedailystar.net/forum/2006/december/skewing.htm

2003. 'Ethical Issues Concerning Representation of Narratives of Sexual Violence'. Women and War - activist website seeking to raise funds for war- affected women of 1971, http://www.drishtipat.org/1971/war.htm

2001. 'Dressed for Fieldwork: Sartorial Borders and Negotiations' in Ethnography@TheMillenium: Anthropology from Below, SOAS, June 2001, Issue 3 and in www.anthropologymatters.com

CHAPTERS IN EDITED BOOKS

2009.'Denunciatory Practices and the constitutive role of Collaboration of the Bangladesh War' in T. Kelly and S. Thiranagama eds. Treason and the Art of Politics: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press.

2009. 'Available motherhood: Legal technologies, 'state of exception' and the dekinning of 'war babies' in Bangladesh in Sabine Berking and Magdalena Zolkos ed. Between Life and Death - Governing Populations in an Era of Human Rights. Peter Lang. 267-283.

2008. 'Friendships and ethnographic 'encounters within left-liberal politics in Bangladesh' in H. Armbruster and A. Laerke eds. Taking Sides: Politics and Ethnography. (A Nancy Lindisfarne Fetschcrift). Oxford: Berghahn: 65-87.

2006. 'Muktir Gaan (Songs of Freedom), the Raped Woman and the Migrant Identities of the Bangladesh War', in N. C. Behera ed. Gender, Conflict and Migration. (as part of the Gender and Migration in Asia, Volume 3, Series editor: M. Thapan). Sage: New Delhi: 72-96.

2004. 'My man (honour) is lost but I still have my iman (principle)': Sexual Violence and Articulations of Masculinity in R. Chopra, C. Osella and F. Osella eds. South Asian Masculinities. New Delhi: Kali for Women: 131-159.

2004. 'The Great Indian Novel' and 'Ranajit Guha' in J. S. Sanga, ed. South Asian Literature in English: An Encyclopaedia. Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.: Connecticut: 120-125.

BOOK REVIEWS

2006. Review of J. J. Climo and M. G. Cattell eds. 2002. 'Social Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives, in Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI), 12, December 2006: 957-958.

2001. Review of Das, V, A. Kleinman, M. Ramphele and P. Reynolds eds. 2000. Violence and Subjectivity. Berkeley: University of California Press in Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute, December, Volume 7, Number 4: 793-794.

Review of Zur, J. 1998. 'Violent Memories: Mayan War Widows in Guatemala'. Oxford, Westview Press, A division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. in Anthropology and Medicine.

Potential Doctoral Proposals

  • Anthropology of politics, state, violence, memory, and human rights
  • Gendered violence during wars
  • Affective apparatus (museums, memorials), senses and the nation-state
  • Political kinship, genetics and transnational adoption
  • Medical anthropology
  • Diasporic communities and South Asia.

Research Student Supervision: M.Phil/Phd

  • Elisabeth Grindel: 'Home', Migration and International students .
  • Leon Moosavi: Converts and Islamophobia in UK (ESRC funded).
  • Chun-Yu Lin: Intimate Citizenship and Governmentality of South-East Asian marriage migrants to Taiwan. (Funded by ORSAS).
  • Kichan Lee: Peace Monument and Dark Tourism in South Korea.
  • Mirza Taslima Sultana: Transformation of Stigma, Desire and Class: Assisted Reproductive Technology and the Infertile Body in Bangladesh (Funded by Lancaster University Research Studentship).

Past doctoral supervision

All my past doctoral students have passed their vivas with none or minor corrections

  • Swati Parashar: Militant Women in Kashmir and Sri Lanka (Passed with no corrections and joined a tenured lectureship position in Limerick University).

Honours and Awards

2009-11. Leverhulme Research Fellowship.

2009. Residency Fellowship at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center (Italy), March

12th-April 9th.

2008. Co-awarded Humanities in European Research Area (HERA) Joint Research

Programmes (JRP) Networking Grant (€3000).

2008. Co-awarded Incubation Fund for Dynamics of Memory. Institute of Advanced Studies, Lancaster University.

2008. British Academy, Overseas Conference Grants (£900), for the Association of Social

Anthropology (ASA) Annual Conference in New Zealand.

2008. British Academy, British Conference Grants (£ 1995), for the South Asian Studies in

the North Conference (SASIN): 'Countermapping the Self: Agency and History in

South Asia'.

2006-2009. Co-awarded, 'ESRC Research Training Programme: Ethics and Ethical Practice

in Social Science.' (£99,386) Website for Ethics resource:http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/researchethics/index.html

2005-2006. Richard Carley Hunt Fellowship, Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological

Research.

2005. British Academy Overseas Conference Grant (for American Anthropological

Association Meeting, Washington, 11/04).

2006-2008. Aided Project Grant, Society for South Asian Studies, British Academy.

2002-2003. Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Society for South Asian Studies, British Academy,

Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex. (I declined it for 2003-2004).

Language Proficiency

Fluent in written, read and spoken Hindi and Bengali.

Eprints Publications Repository and Bibliographic Database

Nayanika Mookherjee has 21 selected publication records listed on this webpage. Use links to access abstracts and full text where available. View all records to sort by date, type and title. For all ePrints records go to http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk

Mookherjee, N. (2006) 'Remembering to Forget' : Public Secrecy and Memory of Sexual Violence in Bangladesh. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12 (2). pp. 433-450. ISSN 14679655

Mookherjee, N. (2007) The "Dead and their Double Duties": Mourning, Melancholia and the Martyred Intellectual Memorials in Bangladesh. Space and Culture : International Journal of Social Spaces, 10 (2). pp. 271-291. ISSN 1552-8308

Mookherjee, Nayanika (2007) Available Motherhood: Legal technologies, `state of exception' and the dekinning of `war-babies' in Bangladesh. Childhood, 14 (3). pp. 339-354. ISSN 1461-7013

Mookherjee, Nayanika. (2004) My man (honour) is lost but I still have my iman (principle): sexual violence and articulations of masculinity. In: South Asian masculinities. Kali for Women, New Delhi, pp. 131-159. ISBN 8186706755

Mookherjee, Nayanika (2008) Gendered embodiments : mapping the body-politic of the raped woman and the nation in Bangladesh. Feminist Review, 88 (1). pp. 36-53. ISSN 0141-7789

Mookherjee, Nayanika and Rapport, Nigel and Josephides, Lisette and Hage, Ghassan and Todd, Lindi Renier and Cowlishaw, Gillian (2009) Ethics of apology : a set of commentaries. Critique of Anthropology, 29 (3). pp. 345-366. ISSN 1460-3721

Mookherjee, Nayanika (2003) Ethical issues concerning representation of narratives of sexual violence. UNSPECIFIED.

Mookherjee, Nayanika (2008) Friendships and ethnographic encounters within left-liberal politics in Bangladesh. In: Taking sides : politics and ethnography. Berghahn, Oxford, pp. 65-87.

Mookherjee, Nayanika (2009) Denunciatory practices and the constitutive role of collaboration of the Bangladesh war. In: Traitors : suspicion, intimacy, and the ethics of state-building. Pennsylvania University Press, Philadelphia. ISBN 978-0-8122-4213-3

Mookherjee, Nayanika (2001) Dressed for fieldwork : sartorial borders and negotiations. Anthropology Matters Journal, 3 (1). ISSN 1758-6453


Associated Keywords: Adoption, Aesthetics, Biopolitics, Children, Citizenship, Conflict, Emotions, Ethnography, Feminist theory, Genetics, Hauntings, Human rights, Kinship, Memorials, Memory, Museums, Nation, Political Anthropology, Research ethics, Socio-Cultural Anthropology, South Asia, Utopia, Violence, War

 

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Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YD
United Kingdom

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